Win10 2004 suddenly removed access to multiple external hard drives. In desperate need of help [ cannot find a solution :( ]

Anonymous
2020-07-26T02:23:34+00:00

Hey everyone,

Name is Antonio and I'm not a regular here. But going to give this a shot and hope that the great minds here can help me get access to my 5 External Hard Drives. The brief story:

Updated to Win10 2004 a couple of weeks ago and everything was fine until a few days ago when Windows does what it normally does, break down in random areas and causes aggravation and headaches. I won't bore anyone with the large list of issues that kept growing daily, except the one that suddenly removed my access to multiple external HDD's. These hard drives house a host of my backup files (photos/videos/programs/music and more) and my video editing files for my job as well. All of a sudden my 12TB G-Speed Studio and 2 WD drives disappeared. A few hours later my 2 WD drives reappeared with the message telling me I don't have permission to access the drives. I did some reading and research and thought the permissions was the issue, however it is not and I had zero success with so many methods i've found on this site and around the web. Maybe it is, but everything i've tried regarding permissions is not working.

I went ahead and downloaded version 1909 from someplace and loaded 1909 yesterday and spent 10 hours working on getting my computer back to "normal" Still not done but whatever. Still didn't have access to the drives. Went ahead and did everything I already tried a second time with no success.

I brought the drives over to my Win7 Laptop and couldn't fix the issue there either.

I just tried doing random things that no one would normally do to their functioning hard drive just to see if I could accidentally fix the issue, but to no avail, nothing worked. I ended up formatting one of my WD drives as it only had specific files I already had backed up to another drive very recently. This wasn't a loss but my other drive is going to be if I cannot gain access. Same goes for my 12TB G-Speed

I'm at a major loss right now. While I'm still pissed at MS for this junk beta OS that I have no choice to use, I need to get passed this anger and solve this issue. I cannot do it alone and need anyone's help. I'm willing to try whatever I need to do without question or hesitation. I NEED this drive as I haven't gotten around to backing it up which was going to happen in another week when my new HDD arrives.

I greatly appreciate any and all help! :)

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

49 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-24T20:54:03+00:00

    Hi,

    What was the command you used to fix the RAW issue ?

    I am curious, and it sounds like it may be useful.. I could do a search, but I may not end up with exactly what you found..

    Good afternoon Slance,

    I believe this was what I found from what I remember:

    I typed chkdsk M(your drive letter): /f

    Depending on the drive size it may take some time. After it finishes it'll tell you if it found any errors and to scan and fix the errors. But also once it finished, I saw my hard drive appear as NTFS again. Fussed with the permissions and all was good. My 2nd drive, the larger one, took about 20 minutes to scan and it told me I had errors, but after a scan, it found no errors but it was changed back to NTFS again. After musical chairs with permissions again, I was able to access the drive with only one folder missing. Data loss is still possible apparently. but thankful this wasn't worse or the same as the previous issue.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-22T13:09:28+00:00

    Hi,

    What was the command you used to fix the RAW issue ?

    I am curious, and it sounds like it may be useful.. I could do a search, but I may not end up with exactly what you found..

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-21T20:56:59+00:00

    Hi,

    I'm glad to hear you found a tool to resolve your RAW issue.. That can happen sometimes because the OS is having trouble reading the directories and etc..

    I do not have a specific favorite, but I would not use the 2004 version.. It is known to have issues.. Some have been fixed and others not, at least to my knowledge.. Because I'm involved in the Insider Program, I am a lot of times running a version far newer than the public release..

    I do not like a lot of the features that keep getting added either.. Some are useful, but most are not..

    Some require a Microsoft Account Login to be usable, and I refuse to do that..

    Version 1903 had a lot of issues as well, but has been repaired a lot and is now basically the same thing as 1909.. If I had to make a choice, I think version 1703 was maybe the most trouble free.. It would probably drive you nuts with updates and may even be expired..

    BTW... Some of the features can be uninstalled, others not..

    About the RAW... It is my understanding that some picture images and maybe even some type of videos are in a RAW format.. I wonder if that may somehow be confusing things..

    I'm grateful I was able to get the drives back to normal without a migraine this time. The Windows cmd fix was all I needed to get from RAW to NTFS again. The unsurprising thing here is, that I had/have no RAW data files. Just another random instance of windows phucking with my drives. Removing permissions on top of that, I thought I was going to have through all entire nonsense I went through last time, but thankfully only had to add Admin & Everyone to get the permissions back.

    Appreciate the info on the versions. I'm sure 1703 will install and work to the best of its' coding abilities. Stopping the updates won't be an issue if that's the case. Sledgehammer has been great in that area. I'm willing to give that version a shot. Perhaps sooner than expected.

    Thank you again for your input :)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-20T01:13:17+00:00

    Hi,

    I'm glad to hear you found a tool to resolve your RAW issue.. That can happen sometimes because the OS is having trouble reading the directories and etc..

    I do not have a specific favorite, but I would not use the 2004 version.. It is known to have issues.. Some have been fixed and others not, at least to my knowledge.. Because I'm involved in the Insider Program, I am a lot of times running a version far newer than the public release..

    I do not like a lot of the features that keep getting added either.. Some are useful, but most are not..

    Some require a Microsoft Account Login to be usable, and I refuse to do that..

    Version 1903 had a lot of issues as well, but has been repaired a lot and is now basically the same thing as 1909.. If I had to make a choice, I think version 1703 was maybe the most trouble free.. It would probably drive you nuts with updates and may even be expired..

    BTW... Some of the features can be uninstalled, others not..

    About the RAW... It is my understanding that some picture images and maybe even some type of videos are in a RAW format.. I wonder if that may somehow be confusing things..

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-19T23:30:18+00:00

    Hi,

    I don't have a clue as to what would be causing that on such a repeated basis..

    I thought maybe turning off Fast Startup was for some reason not actually turning off all of it's features..

    If this is also happening on 1909, that is even more strange..

    After the one time I was able to duplicate your problem, I have not been able to do it again..

    I switch my external drives between Win 7 Pro and 10 Pro on a frequent basis and have never encountered something like that.. Very rarely I will need to allow ChkDsk to run, but no issues are found and everything works..

    Not only do I do this with USB drives, but SATA as well.. I have run SATA power and data cables to an area outside the computer on a shelf for this purpose..

    There may be a problem with Windows 10, but I am thinking there is some kind of an unknown contributing factor as well.. Otherwise I would be having a lot more of these issues, and there would be a lot more of this showing up on the Forums..

    I suppose it could even be hardware\driver related in some fashion... I know all the guessing is of little help, but maybe something to think about..

    It's expected with Win10. Turns out the Drives were changed from NTFS to RAW. Ran a fix I found online through cmd and thankfully both drives are back to NTFS and the data is showing it's there. Was able to fuss with the permissions on one drive and regain access and everything seems to be fine with it. The other drive just finished getting repaired back to NTFS and now I'm going to fuss with the permissions and hope there is no damage.

    I decided I'm going to let Windows keep breaking down until I have no other choice but to wipe it clean again. Any recommendations on which version of Windows10 I should reinstall? I'm not a fan of these "features" they keep releasing and I don't need them. I just want to edit my video, play my games and VR, use Plex and, what seems to be impossible, backup and manage data on external drives.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments